Nuclear Power Flashcards

Flashcards covering key vocabulary and concepts from a lecture on nuclear power.

Nuclear Power

Electricity generated from the nuclear energy contained in nuclear fuel.

Uranium-235

The fuel source used for nuclear energy.

Radioactivity

The emission of ionizing radiation or particles caused by the spontaneous disintegration of atomic nuclei.

Fission

A nuclear reaction in which a neutron strikes a relatively large atomic nucleus, which then splits into two or more parts, releasing additional neutrons and energy in the form of heat.

Fuel Rod

A cylindrical tube that encloses nuclear fuel within a nuclear reactor.

Control Rod

A cylindrical device inserted between the fuel rods in a nuclear reactor to absorb excess neutrons and slow or stop the fission reaction.

Radioactive Decay

When a parent radioactive isotope emits alpha or beta particles or gamma rays.

Half-life

The time it takes for one-half of the original radioactive parent atoms to decay.

Radioactive Waste

Nuclear fuel that can no longer produce enough heat to be useful in a power plant but continues to emit radioactivity.

Becquerel (Bq)

A measurement of the rate at which a sample of radioactive material decays; 1 Bq is equal to the decay of one atom per second.

Curie

A unit of measure for radiation, a curie is 37 billion decays per second.